CSIS puts some tools of the spying trade on display

Canadian security service posts photos of espionage devices from a bygone, analog era

They may seem like innocuous objects. But during the Cold War era, they were used to conceal cameras, recorders and other gadgets used by Canadian and foreign spy agencies to uncover espionage.

To coincide with its 30th anniversary this year, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has for the first time assembled images of some of these spycraft tools on its website — highlighting the “war of wits” that the RCMP Security Service and its successor, CSIS, waged with foreign spy agencies.

“When your No. 1 goal is, ‘Don’t get caught,’ they used every corner of their imagination,” said Alan Jones, who retired from CSIS last year as assistant director of technology. “So it becomes a constant game of one-upmanship.”

One indicator of the lengths that spies would go was with their use of children’s toys.

The “toy truck” was concealed several items used for espionage, including a microdot reader, a special lens and a miniature code book. The table cigarette lighter is hollowed out to conceal an ultra-miniature camera, detachable lens, film disks and film canister.The hollow stick was designed to conceal a message or money. Credit: CSIS

Mike Mihalcin was a Canadian citizen of Russian and Czech descent who was recruited by the KGB to work as a “deep cover” operative in Canada. On a return trip from Eastern Europe in 1961, Mihalcin’s son brought a red toy truck that was “cleverly crafted” to conceal a microdot reader, special lens and miniature code book.

Microdot cameras had the ability to reduce entire pages of information to a tiny piece of film — less than a millimetre in diameter — that could be embedded on postcards or in letters in the form of a period at the end of a sentence. Special magnifying viewers, microdot readers, were needed to read them.

“Poor kid had no idea he was carrying around tools of the trade,” said Vince Houghton, historian and curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where the toy truck is currently on display.

A miniature camera developed by a foreign intelligence service and designed to photograph secret documents located at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This was provided to the museum by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. HANDOUT: International Spy Museum.

When spying on spies, blending into your environment is key. Back in the day, telescopes disguised as binoculars were used to conduct surveillance on people at sporting events or parks.

It was not uncommon for foreign spies to go to Niagara Falls and send short bursts of encrypted messages via shortwave radio to fellow operatives standing on the other side of the border who would be carrying devices that could record the messages, Jones said.

Standing among the tourists, a Canadian field agent would use these special “binoculars” to try to spot them, Jones said.

The constant cat-and-mouse game was not always like how you see in the movies, Jones said. Pursuing someone by car, for instance, could be “brutal,” especially if the target was not obeying traffic laws and you had to stay back.

One method that field agents used for keeping track of targets at night was to place a strip of polarized film on the person’s brake lights. When viewed through a rotating disc, also containing polarized film, the change in polarity would cause the tail light to appear to flash.

Not all gadgets worked as well as field agents wanted.

A camera concealed inside a ladies purse was a common surveillance tool at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This was provided to the museum by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. HANDOUT: International Spy Museum.

Special devices that could be held up to a wall to eavesdrop on conversations easily picked up the sounds of buses and people going to the washroom, but voices came across garbled — “like Ozzy Osbourne with a bucket over his head,” Jones said.

Field agents had a similar love-hate relationship with attaché cases containing built-in recorders and microphones. There was a special trigger to activate the recorder, but agents had no way of knowing whether it was working or not until they opened the case.

Of course, today’s digital world has fundamentally changed how spies operate. Up until 15 years ago, intelligence officers had to rely a lot on physical surveillance to gather information.

A camera concealed inside a ladies purse was a common surveillance tool at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. This was provided to the museum by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. HANDOUT: International Spy Museum.

Today, so much of what they do is in the digital sphere and the challenge is going through all the bits of raw data and figuring out what is important and linking all the important bits into “relationship maps,” Jones said.

But that doesn’t mean some of the more rudimentary forms of spycraft are obsolete, Houghton said.

Just take a look at Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent who spied for the Russians for two decades. Classified materials were delivered to the Russians in trash bags taped underneath a bridge, he said.

As agencies become better at intercepting electronic communications, sometimes the low-tech route is the way to go, he said.

This tool was used to hear conversations in an adjacent room when no microphones were in place. The device was held against the wall and sounds were transmitted to a headset. It was only effective through hollow walls and when there were no other sounds to interfere. Credit: CSIS

The use of a ladies purse for surreptitious photography was a common surveillance tool. The camera was concealed within and activated by a hidden switch on the bottom of the purse. Credit: CSIS

These binoculars are actually a telescope. One side is, in fact, a telephoto lens for the integral 35mm camera. This allowed the surveillant to get photos of subjects without raising undue suspicion. Credit: CSIS

This attaché case was built as a portable bugging device that could be operated from a battery or car lighter. It allowed monitoring and could also serve as a transmitter. Credit: CSIS

This hollow battery resembled a very common item whose purpose was to contain clandestine messages or microfilm. Credit: CSIS